


Far Afield

by furloughday



Series: Far Afield [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Football, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Football | Soccer, M/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 18:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1521107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furloughday/pseuds/furloughday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scotland Yard is not Lestrade's division. <i>Women's Football Division 12</i> is Lestrade's division. And anyone who thinks the former must have seen her hanging around the station during her six months of volunteering, when she still thought becoming a detective would be a fulfilling career path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far Afield

Scotland Yard is not Lestrade's division. _Women's Football Division 12_ is Lestrade's division. And anyone who thinks the former must have seen her hanging around the station during her six months of volunteering, when she still thought becoming a detective would be a fulfilling career path.

"Well, it's not exactly a profession, is it Georgie?" her mother had tutted when she'd signed up to coach a floundering football team. "Any chance this will look good on your CV? Any at all?" She sounded as one clinging to the last threads of hope on the subject.

"Coaching requires me to do some financial stuff sometimes," Lestrade said. "I suppose that will make me attractive to future employers."

So yes, Georgiana Lestrade has a division, and yes, coaching is the most fulfilling job she's ever had. And now the financial matters she fibbed about to her mum have actually manifested as the head of the women's league, who is currently standing in Lestrade's tiny office telling her it's over.

"Come again?" Lestrade gulps.

"It's the lowest division in the league, and I'm not certain how it's been allowed to go on this long as it is, to be quite honest," Tonia Pitts says in sensible tones while ripping Lestrade's dreams up by the roots. "We simply don't have the funding, and all that we do have is going directly to the real divisions. Divisions one and two, and even all the way on down to division five. The whole lot of them need new trainers and they can't even manage to kick the ball half the time. Lord knows what you all are doing down here."

"We'll do better, " Lestrade tells her.

There's a faint glimmer of sympathy before Pitts lays the official paperwork on the desk and turns to go. "I'm sorry, Lestrade. I know how hard you've worked on them. You know it's not personal."

"Well—" Lestrade calls after her, and the captain turns, as if waiting for her to make a case, any at all. "What about heart?" Lestrade finishes lamely. “Doesn’t passion for a great sport count for anything?”

Pitts shakes her head. "It's always going to be about the money. You have one month, and then you're out. Then your time slot on the field will be given to men's rugby. They've been after me for extra practice so this should shut them up for the time being."

Lestrade waits until Pitts is gone to let her shoulders slump.

Men's rugby.

She groans, imagining Harry Watson and the rest of his teammates laughing at the news. They all run into each other at the pub on Saturdays, while Lestrade and the team are having their post-game pity pints. The term was coined by that young upstart Henrietta Knight who plays left forward, and characterizes those moments after a particularly gruesome defeat quite accurately.

Lestrade looks out the grimy window to where her team is setting up to practice. It's a lovely day for mid-February. She can just make out Philomena Anderson sneering and shielding her face against the sunlight as the rest of the team work on their drills, passing the ball clumsily and shouting encouragement to one another as they fumble or trip.

They really are all heart, Lestrade thinks with a wave of almost maternal fondness. She's only twenty-nine but she sometimes feels like this ragtag bunch are her ducklings, trying their very clumsy best. Even Shirley, apparently ignoring the whole football business in favour of smoking on the sidelines and examining her nails, shows up nearly every week to play, and makes it to almost every game, rain or shine, except for those times she's in jail, which is probably too often by anyone's standards.

No, Lestrade can't let this happen. They all love the game. Losing football would ruin them. 

A polite hemming interrupts these thoughts, like someone pretending to clear their throat in order to announce their presence.

An extremely well-dressed girl, tall, with a strange face and short brown hair done up in pigtails, steps through the door. "Excuse the interruption," she says silkily. "But I was looking for Miss Lestrade?"

"That’s me.”

The girl inclines her head. "Well, I was wondering if you would be kind enough to deliver a message for one of your players. Shirley? Shirley Holmes?"

“Oh, right. You could deliver it yourself, she’s right outside.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t want to interrupt practice. Would you mind telling her the steamer’s gone and broken?”

Lestrade squints. “Pardon?”

“The steamer,” the girl says, enunciating clearly. “Is broken. That is all.”

“Ah,” says Lestrade. “I’ll be sure to pass along that...message.”

The girl's mouth curls into the semblance of a smile. “That's very good of you. Have a lovely day. It's supposed to rain in half an hour.”

Lestrade shoots up in her chair. "No. Is it?"

The girl nods almost imperceptibly and, at Lestrade's dismayed silence, shows herself out.

Lestrade gets up to go not long after, gathering her playbook and notes, leaving the official decree Pitts delivered to gather dust on the desk. She'll decide what to do about that tomorrow.

But for now, she decides, stretching her arms up over her head and then doing a half-jog to the door, she's going to coach football. She heads out to the field, thoughts of real life problems far from her mind, the gathering clouds bedamned.


End file.
